


Home

by AngelynMoon



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Possibly survivor's guilt, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, Tarsus IV (mention), made up rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:01:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelynMoon/pseuds/AngelynMoon
Summary: He can't go home.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, Sybok & James T. Kirk, implied relationships - Relationship, kind of - Relationship
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always let me know for tags

He never goes back, can never bring himself to go back. 

When Starfleet finally comes, when they lead him onto the shuttle that will fly them to the ship Sybok knows that he can't go home, not to Vulcan and not to Earth, never to Earth, with it's blue sky like the boy's eyes and it's golden fields to match his hair.

Sybok can't go home because he knows it's his fault that that boy won't be going home.

He doesn't speak to the doctors that guide him to a biobed, he should meditate, sort himself out until he is a calm and proper Vulcan but Sybok knows that he can never be a proper Vulcan, not after what he's seen.

Sybok, like many of the others does not dare to make a sound, not yet, not when the terror of being caught still lingers so close to the surface.

J.T. had taught them all how to hide, he said he used to do it all the time back on Earth, that it was a children's game, the goal to be the last one found.

Sybok curled himself into a ball on the biobed.

J.T. would never play that game again and neither would Sybok.

Sybok closes his eyes tightly, forces himself to remember the boy, his face, the roundness of it before starvation made him lose it, the brightness of his blue eyes, even when there was nothing to be happy about J.T. would try to make the others laugh, and Sybok memorized the shine of gold that the sun made of the boy's hair.

Sybok let the memory drift a little, just enough so that he could memorize the sound of his laugh, the hoarseness of it from the lack of water, or the way his voice sometimes broke off into nothing.

And Sybok remembered J.T. being dragged away, taken because Sybok had been shot, non-lethal only due to the placement of his heart, and J.T. had come back for him, come back to save him only to be taken away to Kodos, where no one ever returned from.

J.T. had fought to get back to Sybok even as he was dragged away, screaming at the men not to leave him behind, screaming that Sybok was still alive.

Sybok didn't know whether to be glad they left him or not, on the one hand he had the chance to live now, on the other hand, J.T. had been alone, had probably died thinking he failed Sybok, that Sybok had died in that street, alone and scared.

But Sybok hadn't died, had managed to hide himself for a few days, rallying his strength and then Starfleet had arrived, months too late.

Days too late.

They had found Sybok, but Sybok had seen no hair of bright gold, nor eyes of sky blue.

And Sybok could never go home because Jim could never go home.

Sybok could not face having to tell his sweet little brother that he had failed to protect his T'hy'la, to tell Lady Amanda that because of Sybok's failure her son could never be whole, to tell his Father that he lived at the cost of something sacred.

Sybok could never go home, and so stayed among the stars.

\---

A/n: so, this is a result of me being weird.

I've seen au's where Spock is on Tarsus IV with Jim, or another Vulcan but I thought what if Sybok was there with Jim and voila I did a thing.

And Yes Jim is alive but Sybok doesn't know that yet because it's not like the Starfleet people think to tell the kids they rescue who else is alive.

Also an Idea for why Sybok isn't present because he thinks he can't go home.


	2. Chapter 2

It scars. The wound that Sybok gained on Tarsus IV. It reminds Sybok of a star, with pointed tips, similar to the way that some Humans depict them in their art.

It's beautiful, in a purely aesthetic way, several of his bed partners have commented on it saying such, a few have expressed interest in where and how he has gotten it but Sybok has never told anyone.

Not even his Father.

Sarek had come to collect him from the Starfleet station that the survivors were taken to, had intended on taking Sybok home to Vulcan to see the mind healers, to help him suppress his his trauma.

But Sybok had looked at his Father and he must have looked guilty, scared because Sarek had asked Sybok what he wanted to do.

Sarek had frowned when Sybok had said he didn't want to go home, the first words he'd spoken since J.T. had been dragged from his side.

So, Sarek had organized an apprenticeship with a Vulcan Science ship and Sybok never stepped foot on Vulcan or Earth if they docked there.

When he heard that Vulcan was destroyed he almost regretted not going back at least once and the starburst over his chest ached when his Father told him that Lady Amanda had perished along with the majority of their people.

Sybok knew that the ache in his scar was psychological, and emotional response but Sybok was not a proper Vulcan on this way.

He had chosen not to suppress his emotions, he remembered how expressive J.T. had been, his eyes lighting up at the slightest smile, his laughter at the simplist joke.

Sybok often wondered how Spock would have responded to J.T.'s particular abrasive and sometimes even aggressive nature.

Sybok could never stop the smile that crossed his lips at his imaginings, sad, wistful, and soaked in regret and pain.

Spock would probably try to kill the boy.

But Sybok would always shake the imaginings away, what use wa a it to think about how they would meet or react to each other when they never would.

When Sybok had made it so they would never meet.

Sybok paused, eyes glancing down to the paper he drew on, one of his few indulgences.

A rendering of how J.T. may have looked if he had had the chance to grow into his bone structure, into his gangly limbs, stared back at him, eyes bright with the blue that Sybok had used for them, just slightly the wrong color, Sybok had yet to find a blue that matched those eyes, jot on any of the planets he had been on, nor had he been able to match the exact shade of gold that the sun had turned the boy's hair.

Until he managed that Sybok vowed not to see Spock in person, not until he could show him the man who would have been his T'hy'la, his brother, friend, and lover.

Sybok could not go home until he could show his brother what Sybok's life had cost him.

And all the while the scar on his chest ached.

\---

A/n: i fully intend on Sybok finding out Jim lives after Spock starts dating him but have some Sybok angst for now.

And yes Sybok shows his emotions, much to most Vulcan's disgust but Sybok doesn't care and they chalk it up to his trauma and pretend it isn't happening.


	3. Chapter 3

When Jim is called to trial for beating the Kobayashi Maru he's angry. 

He knows the test is unwinnable, that it was programed so but he's Jim Kirk and his entire life has been one unwinnable situation after another since his birth.

He was supposed to die in space, Jim knows that for a fact, he was never meant to be born, meant to die with the Kelvin in an abyss, instead his father dies, takes his place beside death and Jim lives.

He lives.

He takes his father's antique car when he's almost twelve, he drives fast and recklessly.

And over the quarry it goes, Jim should have died here too, should have fallen down, down, down with the car.

Instead he lives.

He lives with scrapes on his stomach that scar and remind Jim that he is supposed to be dead.

He's shipped out into space, a new planet, for summer camp, his mother tells him, but Jim knows that it's just because no one wants to deal with him anymore, not Frank, who wishes he'd disappear, not his brother who ran away and vanished, and not his mother who cannot even look at him without tears in his eyes.

She sends him away with a hasty goodbye and not a single touch.

Jim knows that he's going to die on Tarsus IV, he knows it.

And he does, or at least pieces of him do.

His innocence dies in a crowded courtyard under a spray of bullets, his hope dies days later as he digs a hole for three small bodies, he refuses to let his smile die there, refuses to allow the rest of the kids he saved to lose their hope.

He swears he will bury no more bodies.

He doesn't.

Instead Kodos' men leave the Vulcan boy where he lays, bleeding out from a chest wound as they drag Jim away.

Jim doesn't remember what he said, he knows that he claimed the other boy still lived, he knows it because a Vulcan's heart is not in the same place as a Human's.

The men do not listen and leave his friend where he had fallen.

Jim never sees him again.

He sees Kodos instead and Jim swears as he fights his way out of Kodos' burning mansion that he will never forget that monster's face and he will never forgive him either.

J.T. dies on Tarsus IV and James Kirk was never there.

Jim hides in a cargo bay of one of the Starfleet ships that arrived much too late and goes home.

Jim lives but he will never be whole again, not when so much of him has already died.

Jim is still angry when he demands to face his accuser, he's still angry when the professor speaks.

And then he makes the mistake of looking over at him.

For a moment Jim is not on on trial, for a moment his surroundings fade away and Jim is meeting a friend for the first time.

All pointed ears and proper lines and that slight accent that tells Jim the other learn Vulcan before Standard.

And that meeting blurs into green spreading over dry ground, a hand reaching out, an open mouth from which nothing exits.

Jim knows that this Professor was related to the Vulcan he failed, if only distantly.

Jim wonders if he might finally be able to learn his name.

Jim forces himself to focus only for a distress call from Vulcan to interrupt them.

Jim has always known that he would die in space.

\--_

A/n: have some Jim pov.

And I think that Jim would insist on code names just to be silly and make the kids smile so none of the kids used their real names and Sybok was called Greenleaf because Jim's a nerd(he wanted to call him Legolas but the kids and Sybok himself had trouble pronouncing it right.)


	4. Chapter 4

Jim has always known he would die in space.

And he does.

He dies alone and trapped, only glass between him and the man who has become his best friend and his everything, even if Jim is not Spock's.

He doesn't mind that so much, Jim is so used to having nothing and no one that even just friendship is enough.

Sometimes he's shocked that Bones stuck around so long, and je has a brief moment where he wants to apologise to Bones but Bones isn't here and thinking is hard.

Jim places his hand on the glass, finds a smile, weak and broken for Spock when he places his hand against his, only a thin separation between their skin.

Jim wonders what it would feel like to toch him skin to skin.

Jim wants to wipe away the tear that falls from Spock but he knows that he never can.

Jim has always known he would die in space.

It never once occured to him that he wouldn't be alone when he did.

Jim dies in space.

He's frightened but not alone and he can't help but wonder if his Vulcan friend felt the same all those years ago as he died while Jim was dragged away.

Jim felt the world shift and fall still and silence greeted him as darkness wrapped itself around him.

Jim had known he'd die in space.

And he does.

\---

A/n: well woops.


	5. Chapter 5

Spock invites his brother to his wedding, even though he does not expect Sybok to come.

Spock has not seen Sybok in person in years, the other Vulcan refusing to return to Vulcan and never setting foot on Earth, though Sybok had been more supportive of Spock joining Starfleet than their father, though Sybok never liked Starfleet much.

Spock has missed his brother, he has not been the same since he went to summer camp on another planet all those years ago, Sybok had wanted to embrace Spock's mother's traditions, her humanity and so had gone away.

He'd never returned and never spoke about what had happened there, not to their father, not to Spock's mother and not to Spock.

But Sybok was different after, he no longer hid his emotions, smiling at Spock with tears lingering in his eyes, for what reason those tears appeared Spock couldn't guess.

But Spock is getting married to his T'hy'la, it is only proper that what is left of his family comes.

Jim does not invite his, tells Spock that his crew has been more of a family than his mother ever was and he still does not know where his own brother is, if he's even alive.

It pains Spock that Jim has so few people that will stand by him as they join thier lives before their people, even though they are already one and whole.

But Spock sends the invitation that Jim carefully penned and thinks no more on it, Sybok will not come and Spock will call him after and tell him.

So, it surprises Spock to see his brother arrive, robes carefully pressed and hair braided back, Sybok has not cut his hair since he left Vulcan all those years ago, an ancient Vulcan mourning ritual that no one else practices, Spock has never dared ask who Sybok mourns.

Sybok greets Spock quietly but his eyes are curious, he wants to know who Spock is marrying but he does not ask.

Spock leads Sybok to their father, the Vulcan's eyes widening in surprise telling Spock that Sybok hadn't told Sarek that he'd be coming. Spock leaves his brother and father to catch up, he has other guests to greet even though the wedding is in a few days.

Absently Spock wonders where Jim is before recalling that Jim is hiding from several of his family members due to cheek pinching, and not the ones on his face either. 

Spock had already warned them that next time Spock would removed their hands for touching what was his but Jim was still hiding.

Spock goes to find Jim later, after most of the guests have left.

He does not expect to find him talking quietly with Sybok as his brother sobs in his chest, there are tears streaming down Jim's cheeks too but his eyes are bright with happiness.

There is something secret here, something that Jim has not yet trusted him with as the two clutch one another.

But Spock can see pieces of the brother that never came home in the lines of the Vulcan that Jim holds, that is clutching Jim's arms nearly tight enough to break his bones.

Spock has missed that brother, has missed him since he went away and never came back.

Maybe one day they would tell Spock just how they knew one another, but for now Spock steps away silently and heads to bed, Jim will join him soon enough.

\---


	6. Chapter 6

Sarek never thought he'd see Sybok again, not after he survived Tarsus IV.

He'd gone to collect him, offered him comfort and solutions to his trauma and when Sybok only looked at him with tear filled eyes and said 'I cannot go home.' Sarek had merely nodded and made arrangements so that he did not have to.

Sybok had spent the better half of the last several years on ships and far away planets, he'd chosen botany over his previous areas of interest and Sarek had wondered what sparked the change.

Sybok never spock of how he survived Tarsus, not to the mind adepts, not to Amanda, not to Spock, and not to himself.

And before Spock went to Starfleet, when they had still spoken together as a family there was always a sadness in Sybok's eyes when he looked at his brother.

But every time they asked him to come back to Vulcan his response was always the same.

Always 'I cannot go home.'

Why Sybok felt he could not come home Sarek did not know and no matter how many times Amanda assured him that Sybok could return the boy never relented, never gave any indication that he believed her.

Sybok felt he could not return to Vulcan and so he never did.

Sarek had expected that he would take a trip after Spock's marriage and Bonding to inform his elder son of their new family member and was surprised to see him walk behind Spock after the younger welcomed him.

There was not much to say, Sarek could not bring himself to ask why Sybok had chosen now to come home.

They looked at one another and then Sybok took in a sharp breath, eyes widening.

Sarek turned to see what caught his gaze and frowned, if Sybok became enamored of Jim Spock would be well within his rights to kill him and Sarek did not want to lose his son anymore than he had already.

"Greenleaf." Jim said, voice choked, "You're alive."

"Yes." Sybok said quietly, hand reaching out to trace Jim's cheek, "As are you."

Jim chuckled, "I mean I died there for a hot minute, but Spock went and saved me."

"Indeed." Sybok raised an eyebrow in a move that Sarek had not seen from him in years.

"I'll tell you all about it if you tell me what you've been doing for the last few years while I thought you were dead." Jim grinned but his eyes were shiny.

Sybok pressed his hand flat against Jim's cheek, close to his psypoints but not a true meld, just enough to get the just of Jim's emotions. It was intimate and Sarek opened his mouth to put a halt to it but Jim pressed Sybok's hand to his cheek.

"You did not fail me, J.T., you are the reason I lived at all, that any of us survived." Sybok said quietly, "It was I who failed you, I let them take you when it was my duty to keep you safe, when I knew what you were to Spock." 

Sarek's eyes widened, Sybok knew Jim was Spock's T'hy'la, they must have been on Tarsus together and separated eventually, traumatically enough that they thought one another dead.

Suddenly it made sense that Sybok would think he could not come home, to lose a T'hy'la was the greatest loss a Vulcan could go through, many did not survive if they had met and others went mad even if they hadn't.

Sybok thought he'd failed his brother and their family by not protecting Jim, by losing him.

Sarek understood why Sybok had not been able to return home before today.

Perhaps now he could finally come home to stay.

\---

A/n: i'm not sure if this is going to get anymore chapters, it feels like a good ending but I'll leave it incomplete for a few days because i might decide to end it with another Sybok chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

Sybok looks in the mirror, his hair cascading down his back, free, for once, of the braids he has kept it in since that summer.

He takes a handful of his hair in his hand and pets it gently before he reaches out for the scissors.

Carefully and handful by handful, Sybok cuts his hair.

The cut strands he places gently in a wooden box that Amanda had gifted him before he left that summer, for his treats, she'd said with a smile.

Sybok wished that that was not the last time he'd seen her smile in person.

When his hair was all cut short Sybok closed the box and locked it, tbe key hidden inside his robes.

He took the box in hand and travelled from his room to the area of land behind his father's new home.

There Sybok built a fire and placed the box in it once the blaze was strong enough.

Watching the box burn made Sybok feel lighter somehow, like the smoke was carrying all the grief he'd felt for J.T. away.

There was still grief for Amanda and how he'd always refused to come home to her, refused her help and comfort. Human or not, she'd always treated him like he was her son too.

He'd never thanked her for that.

"Greenleaf?" J.T. asked from the doorway.

Sybok turned to look at him and smiled.

J.T. was marrying his brother today.

Sybok had not failed his brother, his family.

Spock had found his T'hy'la without his help.

Sybok turned back to the fire.

"I came home, Amanda." Sybok whispered to the morning air, hoping that Amanda could see them.

\---

A/n: not sure I really like this chapter, it feels weird but it's what wanted to be written.

Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
